Learning from Toyota — before the recalls

There is a good chance that you are sitting in a Herman Miller product. The Michigan-based company has long been a leader in the office furniture business. It has also recently been named an Innovation All Star by Fast Company. A blog posting also on Fast Company (Video: What Herman Miller Learned From Toyota (Before the Recall Disaster), Mar 5) notes that beyond innovative designs, the company has also achieved operational excellence and has a highly reliable supply chain. This following video (admittedly a Herman Miller puff piece) explains how Toyota helped them improve their operations:

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Now pair that with this New York Times article — G.M. and Ford Channel Toyota to Beat Toyota (Mar 5) — on how G.M. and Ford may possibly gain from Toyota’s troubles because they have implemented many of the things that Toyota’s done. That really drives home that the Toyota production system is the machine that changed the world and despite their recent issues much can be learned from how Toyota approaches building cars.